Category Archives: Diocese of Rome

From the Link: https://opentabernacle.wordpress.com/2016/03/20/can-pope-francis-keep-out-running-his-sex-abuse-scandals/

“Saint” Peter Damian

Fr. Alessandro De Rossi, 46, pastor of a parish in Rome, was arrested on Dec. 31, 2014, charged with aggravated sexual abuse. An Argentine judge had issued the international arrest warrant on December 26 and transmitted it to Interpol.

De Rossi, born in Rome and sent to Argentina by Church authorities, was accused specifically with corrupting and sexually abusing minors, and “causing also the practice of group sex,” while he was a missionary in the Province of Salta from 2008 to 2013 working with young drug addicts.

On Dec. 23 and 24, 2014,

Salta police officers carried out several raids to seize computers, photographs and some other information that could be used as evidence of the alleged ties between De Rossi and the sexual abuse cases that had been reported by minors.

Prosecutor Pablo Paz explained to local media that there was enough evidence to charge the priest. Paz explained that he did not only have the depositions from the victims but also e-mails that De Rossi sent to the young man who filed a complaint. According to the prosecutor, De Rossi has to face charges for aggravated sexual abuse.

The Buenos Aires Herald also reported that “Judge Diego Rodríguez Pipino of Salta did not just request that Interpol arrest De Rossi but he also requested the assistance of the Foreign Ministry, the Border Guard, the Federal Police and the Airport Security Police. The Foreign Ministry is expected to play an important role to seek theextradition of the priest.”

The article noted that Italy had recently rejected Argentina’s request for extradition of two men connected to the atrocities committed during that country’s 1976-1983 military dictatorship. One “was charged with the kidnapping and torture of more than 60 people.” He had fled to Italy “trying to take advantage of his dual nationality” and “had taken refuge in a chapel in Genoa.” The other “was said to have witnessed torture in a clandestine detention centre.”

In January 2013, De Rossi had been hospitalized after he said he was attacked by a young man who had asked him for money and food. “I will not return to Italy,” he told a provincial newspaper.

“The priest, who had returned to Rome in early 2013 for health reasons, after spending several years in the mission, was accompanied by a positive assessment by the local bishop. For this reason he had been entrusted the pastoral care of the parish of St. Aloysius Gonzaga in September 2013,” the Diocese of Rome stated after De Rossi’s arrest. The diocese had “full confidence in the Italian judiciary.”

Although one of the pope’s titles is Bishop of Rome, the diocese, or “vicariate,” is administered by a vicar-general appointed by the pope. Cardinal Agostino Vallini was appointed by Pope Benedict XVI and confirmed by Pope Francis. Archbishop of Salta, Mario Antonio Cargnello, appointed in 1999 by Pope John Paul II, is the “local bishop” referred to in diocese’s statement.

De Rossi was put under house arrest by the Church for only six months after his arrest by civil authorities. Extradition to Argentina was denied on Oct. 11, 2015, by the Court of Appeal of Rome for “lack of serious evidence.” A prosecutor can decide to pursue the case further or close it.

Regardless, since October, De Rossi is a free man and under no ecclesial supervision.

After the priest’s arrest on Dec. 31, 2014, Vatican spokesman Fr. Federito Lombardi had stated, “I do not know anything … It’s something that does not start from the Vatican.”

But it does “start from the Vatican.” The failure of Cardinal Vallini and Archbishop Cargnello to protect children can be directly attributed to Pope Francis’ tolerance of such callousness.

For example, on Feb. 18, 2016, Pope Francis said that “a bishop who moves a priest to another parish when a case of pedophilia is discovered” should “present hisresignation,” announcing to his hierarchs around the world that he will not hold them accountable for endangering children and only in this particular circumstance would they be expected to offer their resignation.

On March 14, Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco, president of the Italian Bishops’ Conference, quoted the pope’s words as justification for maintaining their policy that prelates are not required to report the sex abuse of minors to civil authorities.

Cardinal Paolo Romeo, archbishop of Palermo, Sicily, said it was “not my place” to report Fr. Roberto Elice for abusing minors. Romeo “knew about the abuse against three children for three years.” On Feb. 2 Italian police arrested Elice who had left the parish “only a few weeks ago” where the abuse took place.

Cardinal Philippe Barbarin, France’s senior Catholic prelate and now the subject of a criminal investigation on charges of failing to report and endangering the lives of others about sexual abuse of minors as required by French law, stated he would not resign.

One of Barbarin’s priests, Fr. Bernard Preynat, was indicted on Jan. 27 for “sexual abuse of minors under 15 years by a person in authority.” In an interview published Feb. 10, Barbarin admitted “having learned the facts in 2007-2008” about Preynat, but promoted him anyway in 2007, keeping him in ministry and in contact with children until he removed him in August 2015.

It was first reported on Feb. 12, “In the coming days, complaints will be filed against [Cardinal Philippe Barbarin, archbishop of Lyon] for failure to report pedophilia.” Preynat’s attorney stated on Feb. 16 “the facts were known by the ecclesiastical authorities since 1991” that his client had sexually abused young scouts between 1986 and 1991.

On March 4, prosecutors announced that “senior Vatican figures” would also be in included in their investigation for “failure to report a crime.” “The Vatican had given Cardinal Barbarin its backing, saying it had confidence he would deal with the matter ‘with great responsibility’ … The implicit support for Barbarin suggests that even pretensions that bishops should follow the law has been abandoned.”

The case has become so notorious that French Prime Minister Manuel Valls urged Barbarin “to take responsibility for his actions” on March 15 Two days later, theFrench state secretary for victims issues, Juliette Meadel, called on Barbarin to resign.

Also on March 17, new accusations were made that Barbarin had also promoted a priest previously convicted for sexually abusing adults in a residential home. Church officials denied the priest had been promoted but admitted he was still employed by the Lyon diocese.

Australian Cardinal George Pell, chosen by Pope Francis as head of all Vatican finance, gave testimony before the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse for four days ending March 3. His testimony was videolinked from a hotel room in Rome because the cardinal claimed he was too ill to travel to Australia.

The subject was what he knew about clerical sex abuse in Ballarat. In Ballarat “we have the highest suicide rate among men in Australia. We have some of the worst drinking and violence problems. And it all stems from that abuse,” said David Ridsdale, one of the victims. “This is not just a problem in Ballarat or in Australia,” he told the press. “This is a systemic problem throughout all the world.”

Australians were disgusted by Cardinal Pell’s testimony.

“Pell’s testimony was directly contradictory … The pattern in Australia was identical to that in Ireland, Canada and the United States: countries that have also been stunned by the extent of the Church’s crimes, the enthusiasm of the conspiracy to elude authorities and the comparative indifference to victims,” wrote one columnist.

“Cardinal George Pell is finished whatever way you look at it,” wrote a columnist for theSydney Morning Herald. “This royal commission is just one example of light currently being shone, globally, upon the horror.”

“What we now know – more recently through the painful and confronting accounts of victims of crimes and testimonies during the royal commission – is that the sickening crimes of several Catholic priests were ignored by the very establishment which preaches propriety. And what Pell showed this week, was that even after these crimes were exposed for public condemnation, accepting blame by the Church appears to be a very difficult concept,” wrote the political editor of Perth Now Sunday Times. “And yet, he told journalists this week: ‘I have the full backing of the pope.’”

Pope Francis refused to meet with victims who had flown to Rome to witness Pell’s testimony in person.

“The pedophile scandal erupted in Oaxaca shortly before the visit of Pope Francis to Mexico [Feb. 12-18] but the pope did not agree to meet with relatives of the victims in this case nor others that have occurred years ago.” While Pope Francis “blasted the ‘oppression, mistreatment and humiliation’ of indigenous peoples,” the archdiocese was accused of covering up sexual abuse of 100 indigenous children. “Civil organization and relatives of victims accused the archbishop of Oaxaca, Jose Luis Chavez, and the Vatican of concealing evidence of abuse of indigenous children and refusing to listen to the victims.”

Victims’ advocate and former priest, Alberto Athie, pointed out that while the pope chastises others for corruption, “clerical pedophilia should be viewed as systemic like organized crime which stops a criminal in isolation but does not affect the criminal structure.” Athié said that clerical pedophilia has left more than a thousand victims in Mexico and there are at least five archbishops responsible for covering up for pedophile priests: three of the Archdiocese of San Luis Potosi; Cardinal Norberto Rivera of Mexico City and some of his auxiliary bishops, and the Archdiocese of Oaxaca. Pope Francis is aware of several of these cases, Athie said.

Fr. Joseph Palanivel Jeyapaul was charged in Minnesota with sexually abusing two teenage girls. He fled the US but was arrested by Interpol in 2012 and extradited back to the US where he was convicted last year. “Following a plea deal, Roseau County district court sentenced him to a year in jail but he was released and deported to India in June 2015 on account of time served while awaiting trial.”

In January, the Vatican lifted Jeyapaul’s suspension following a recommendation by an Indian bishop. “We have provided him accommodation but he will not have any active role in the Church,” a spokesman for Diocese of Ooty said. Essentially, Jeyapaul is a free man.

The attorney who represented the girls in Minnesota said, “The Vatican must be held accountable. … This is on the pope.”

Unfortunately for the thousands of future victims of clerical sex abuse, Pope Francis can keep out running his scandals because the US media is the most influential in the world and they continue to lie. No, the pope DID NOT fire his US ambassador as I will explain in a future report. (For one thing, Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò passed the mandatory retirement age of hierarchs in January and is still in office. Second, the 3 Vatican reporters who broke the story never mentioned Kim Davis. Third, Vigano considered this post to be “punishment” for honestly reporting Vatican corruption and would be happy to leave.) In addition to his contempt for his Church’s victims of clerical sex abuse, Pope Francis is a misogynisthomophobe.

(Betty Clermont is author of The Neo-Catholics: Implementing Christian Nationalism in America.)

(Note to readers: No alternative reporter or blogger would have access to accurate information on the global clerical sex abuse crisis without the Abuse Tracker website, administered by the volunteer talent and hard work of Kathy Shaw. If you’d like to support independent journalism, please visit the website and follow the instructions to donate.)